


The Most Powerful Motivators

by Wandering_Anon



Category: Stella Glow
Genre: (a good belief to go into this fic with), Angst, Archibald as himself for better or for worse, Drunk Sex, IF you believe you can't consent while drunk, M/M, Regret, Rusty as the bisexual disaster he was meant to be, in that order, noncon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:33:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21593878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wandering_Anon/pseuds/Wandering_Anon
Summary: In which Rusty and Archibald fuck and then realize their mistake the following morning.
Relationships: Archibald/Rusty (Stella Glow)
Kudos: 4





	The Most Powerful Motivators

**Author's Note:**

> Pinning this down on the timeline was hard. I'd say it's... slightly before the Kashmistan incident? The 9th doesn't exist, Rusty's ~21 and significantly more unhinged, he and Archibald don't work in the same circles often but they've met a few times? Sounds about right

Rusty slams his mug onto the counter, and the day is going great. 

The morning had begun with an assignment: his squadron, and a few extras, were to take out a group of orcs that had laid claim to a forest path just outside of Port Noir. The afternoon had comprised of fighting the orcs in simple combat, with no losses and minimal injuries on the field of battle. And the evening, as it was shaping up now, was to be nothing but claiming the spoils of victory: alcohol, praise, and with any luck, his newest target for the night.

His eyes drift lazily over to Archibald, whose armor is still on (a testament to something or another) as he drinks and celebrates with the rest of Rusty's squadron. Archibald can’t be new to the army, not with skills like his, but Rusty isn’t sure he’d ever taken notice of the older knight before. Now, not five feet apart in a darkened bar, still coming down from the high of combat, Rusty’s interest is piqued. Archibald is _attractive_ , after all, and maybe it’s the alcohol or maybe it’s the adrenaline, but he’s willing to take his shot.

So he slides into a seat next to Archibald and starts up a conversation. Archibald takes to his smiles and charms like a moth to light, and soon the hours are passing by in a blur of drinks and weapons trivia and shameless flirting gone unrecognised. By last call, Archibald is right where Rusty wants him: interested, flattered, and plenty willing to spend more time together tonight. 

It's only when they actually reach the little apartment in one of Port Noir’s residential districts that Archibald seems to _really_ understand what Rusty’s intentions are. The longer they spend in the room, setting boundaries and discussing experiences, the further Archibald drifts towards the far walls of the room, as if trying to hide his massive form in a tiny corner. Rusty has to bite back a laugh at the timidness. _Damn_ if it isn't as charming as everything else. He takes a few steps closer to the older knight as the older knight _tries_ to take a few steps back, then beckons him closer with a small, genuine smile. 

"Trust me, Archie. I'll take care of you."

Archibald shakes his head, helmet clacking against the wall. “A good knight would never–"

Rusty shushes him. “Would you shut up about what a good knight would do? At least for one night?”

The moment Rusty crashes their lips together, all heat and fervour and passion, Archibald‘s protests cease.

The kiss deepens as they drift back towards the bed, and by the time they reach their destination, Archibald is responding with just as much eagerness, if not moreso. It takes effort to break their kiss, but a soft-spoken order is all it takes for Archibald to doff his armour. Rusty is somewhat disappointed to realise he isn’t packing much for his stature, but his body is beautiful otherwise, all muscle and toned skin, and Rusty can’t look away. He well and truly wants this.

As the night goes on, it becomes more and more clear that Archibald has no idea what he’s doing, fumbling and waiting for orders, face flushed red with intoxication and excitement. Even the most basic touches seem foreign, eliciting broken gasps of surprise and pleasure, and when Rusty begins stroking him slowly, teasingly, through the boxers he’s yet to take off, it seems he might come then and there.

The thought is _dizzying_ , but Rusty stops himself. He doesn’t want the fun to end that early. 

He guides Archibald down into a more fitting position and orders him to relax, then fetches the lubricant and condom from his coat pocket. He doesn’t often prefer to top when he’s with other men, but the commands he's giving Archibald don't feel foreign in his mouth. Archibald is different. _Archibald is tantalising_ , and Rusty finds that he wants control of him more than he’d wanted most anything else in life. 

It’s difficult getting Archibald accustomed to the discomfort and stretching that come with the insertion of fingers, as with any first timer, but he is nothing if not resilient, quick to put up with it and quick to want more. Rusty is willing to comply– perhaps a bit much so, but they both want this, so whose matter is it?– and when he first brushes three fingers against that sweet spot, Archibald quivers with his entire body, head tossing back with the force it takes to keep a deep cry unsounded in his throat (an endeavour hardly successful). Rusty’s mouth goes dry. His skin grows hot. Suddenly, he _can’t_ wait. Suddenly he wants– _needs_ – to know how Archibald would sound under him, whether all the force in the world would be enough to keep the older knight‘s moans down— if he would even _try_ to suppress them anymore. 

He withdraws his fingers and locks eyes with Archibald, who to Rusty’s unspoken question closes his eyes and gives a shaky nod. That’s all it takes for the younger knight’s restraint to shatter like a glass statuette, all it takes before he’s buried to the _hilt_ inside Archibald and relishing in the sensation, in the staggered gasps of pain and shock. He takes a second to wonder if he should feel guilt at causing the older knight this much pain on his first tryst, if he should back out and add more lubricant before continuing, but Archibald looks back at him and gives him a shaky smile, and that’s all the approval Rusty needs. At once, he trains all of his knight’s focus and agility on Archibald, going _deeper, rougher, faster_. Seeing such a strong man be reduced to whines and writhes, keening in a medley more beautiful than anything imaginable, drives Rusty insane. His body moves of its own accord under the dizzying lust, hips snapping forward to meet flesh with flesh, teeth nipping at Archibald’s collarbone, chest heaving as he pants and growls with exertion. It’s one of the best nights the young knight can claim he’s had. 

Drunk or not, he knows not to expect round two out of a newcomer. So when climax comes for the older knight with a shudder and a broken cry of Rusty’s name, he’s aware the fun’s over. Still, he makes one more desperate thrust into Archibald before drawing out and stroking himself to his own end. He still comes _hard_ from that, enough to have him gasping and seeing stars, and he barely has the condom off and tied before he slumps onto the bed next to Archibald. Archibald looks at him with half-lidded eyes and a dopey smile, and Rusty raises a smile of his own. He doesn’t bother curling closer to Archibald, even though that is his first instinct; the last thing Rusty needs is to imbue this with any more meaning than necessary. 

Though, maybe he’ll return to this particular haunt once or twice more. 

He huffs at the thought, and it’s amused. Afterglow is barely a haze to him anymore, but the alcohol gives his thoughts a pleasant little blur. He had been the one to take this fumbling knight’s virginity. _Him._ And in the future, he might be introducing Archibald to similar pleasures again.

When he falls asleep that night, counting Archibald’s breaths, it’s to a warm comfort and a blooming pride. 

—————

When he wakes up the next morning, it’s to a strong clarity and a stabbing hangover.

There’s no moment of revelation or remembering; he wakes with a full memory of what happened the night before, though he briefly wonders if it was a dream until he sees Archibald sitting stiffly at the foot of the bed, fully dressed in his armour. His back is turned to Rusty and his shield lays discarded on the floor nearby, but his status isn’t any less clear for it; where his family crest is absent, the details in his armour persist, a blacksmith’s way of marking a noble house. 

Rusty had bedded nobles before. It was, frankly, hard to keep track of who was the son of a local guildsman or who was the niece of a regent prince from far-off lands, and it wasn’t usually relevant anyway. But this? This was Colin Archibald, twenty-eighth head of the Archibald family, _directly_ connected to the royal family of Regnant and well above anything Rusty ever would be. He’d just had sex with _Colin Archibald_ , been the first one to do so, and, it seemed, shown him one hell of a good night. 

That’s a triumph.

Rusty stretches, cracking his shoulder blades loudly enough to draw Archibald’s attention. “Morning,” he says, and the older knight turns around slowly to look at him. The sunken, worn look in his eyes is apparent well before he actually makes eye contact, and there’s a long pause once they actually do meet each other’s gaze. 

“Good morning, Rusty,” Archibald eventually says. His voice is husky and raw, with a distinct rasp in back, and he winces upon hearing himself. Rusty grins knowingly. 

“Morning, Archie. Still recovering from last night, I take it?” 

There’s an unreadable expression in Archibald’s eyes, settling like a precipitate before he turns his head away from Rusty. “Do not remind me. I should never have partaken in those actions to begin with. It’s... not becoming of me, to have done so.” He clears his throat, flinches, stops. Rusty can’t help but breathe a short laugh. 

“Man, you’re uptight. Barely awake, and you’re already back to this ‘righteousness’ crap. Don’t you ever let loose a little?” Rusty throws his hands behind his head in a gesture he knows is aloof– not that Archibald shows any interest in looking at it– and flashes a trademark grin. “These are your prime years! You’ve got to enjoy them while you can.”

“Enjoyment of that type does not appeal to me.” Archibald’s words slam down like a metal grate— no room to argue, no room to joke around, no room to pass and leave all alone. Rusty’s smile drops at the severity, but he finds it again after a fraction of a second– just as strong, arguably just as real. 

“Doesn’t it? We’re _guys,_ Arch; we’re hard-wired to find this stuff appealing. Unless you mean your choice of partner,” and at this Rusty raises an eyebrow, “in which case there’s nothing to say except congratulations on the self-discovery.” 

Archibald shifts just enough for Rusty to see his profile. The low light of early morning casts half of his face in shadow; the other half is shaded by his expression, which is an inscrutable but distinctly displeased rictus. Rusty steadies his voice, and in spite of his growing unease, continues, “You know you had to have fun, or else you wouldn’t have stayed.” 

“I will _never_ enjoy time spent with a man who takes advantage of another like that!” It‘s immediate, and suddenly angry. A blunt statement of a deep moral that had evidently been violated. Archibald’s head snaps around, eyes blazing with an alien fire, to focus entirely on Rusty. “What kind of a knight are you?” 

“Listen, Archie,” he begins, and he doesn’t know what he wants to follow that with but knows he has to say _something_ , “it’s because we’re knights that we need this every once in a while. You can’t stay wound-up all the time and expect to do good work.” 

_Wrong choice._ Archibald’s eyes narrow, bitter. “The Archibald family has done exceptional work for years.”

“The Archibald family had to conceive you somehow,” Rusty says before he can stop himself, and he regrets it immediately. He sighs, and the cocky grin slips from his face. Taking a second to gather himself, he manages, “Look... I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you when you were drunk like that.”

For a while, Archibald is silent, staring at Rusty with that same cursed intensity. Then he stands, picks up his gauntlet, and does not turn back around. “You’re correct that you should not have taken action,” he says. There‘s a pregnant pause as the last word lingers in the air like a promise, before he shakes himself off and advances towards the door.

For a horrible second, Rusty can’t think beyond his desperation. He almost begins to lunge towards Archibald with a protest on his tongue, but instead, he recoils back, wincing as pain lances through his head. As he brings a hand up to massage his temple in a feeble attempt to ease the splitting headache, Archibald pauses in the doorway. “Make sure you’re ready before you return to the castle,” he says curtly, not looking back. “You must be decent in the face of royalty.” Then, the footsteps begin again, and Rusty is left alone.

He slams his fist into the bed, and it doesn’t hurt near as much as he’d hoped it would.

**Author's Note:**

> Me: Rusty and Archibald's personalities are Like That because they're supposed to be character foils of each other! Got it.
> 
> Also Me: bbut what if they. they had drunk sex and _that's_ actually why


End file.
